Schooltime Once Again

On Monday I needed to call Cordy’s school district to find out more about the summer program. I was told by her teacher at the end of the school year that she was accepted into the program, but no further information was given.

After calling 5 (!) numbers, being re-routed several times and hung up on once, I finally found out they had no information yet as to the summer program, but they were pretty sure it started the next day. Amazed at the lack of organization, I asked them to please call me back when they did find out exactly where we should be and when.

Cordy’s new teacher called late in the afternoon to introduce herself and tell me that due to a scheduling problem with the buses, there would be no morning pick-up today, asking if I could please bring her to school instead. I should mention that her summer school is on the other side of Columbus. Ugh.

So today we packed up her bag, got in the car, and fought rush-hour traffic to get to the other side of town. We got there and tried to tell her how much fun she was going to have at her new school.

New school. New teachers. New classroom. New classmates. See where this is going? Yeah, she didn’t even make it all the way down the hall before hitting the floor. She hid behind my legs as the teachers tried to coax her into the classroom, but she buried her face into my leg and whimpered.

We finally got her into the classroom, and explained all of her quirks to her new teacher, giving her tips on how to best handle Cordy. For those first few minutes, with only one other child in the room, all was well and Cordy examined the toys on the shelves. But then more kids arrived, and she clung to my leg and asked to go home to the quiet house. She couldn’t handle all of the new sensory input – her brain was going into overdrive.

Knowing the meltdown that would follow, I pried her off of me and we left, listening to her screams echo down the hall. I wondered how her first day would go, especially since the summer program classes were two hours longer than her normal school day.

There was no call all day, so we assumed everything was going well. Right on time, the bus arrived, and a smiling preschooler stepped off the bus. She was clearly tired, but happy to tell me all about our front lawn as we walked to the door. A note in her backpack said that she cried for about 15 minutes in the morning, and then had a good day after that. It helps that they spent the day studying one of her favorite subjects: fish. They fed goldfish, went “fishing” in the sandbox, and made cutouts of fish.

I think Cordy will have fun with this summer preschool. We’ll see if she’s willing to get on the bus tomorrow, of course, but once she gets used to her new surroundings, I suspect she’ll charm her new teachers and have the entire class bending to her will.

PS – The school may not have been prepared, but we were prepared today by having all of the items in her backpack labeled, thanks to Mabel’s Labels. Read my review of these amazing sticky labels and enter my contest to win a Camp Pack set of personalized labels for your child!